Rules of the Hunt (13 page)
Kathleen
studied Kilmara.
Here was a man who had
seen and tasted much of what life had to offer, she thought, and had come to
terms with it.
Here was a man whose
daily currency was lethal force and who hunted other men.
And who was a target himself.
What a terrible existence.
"How do
you live with all this," she asked, "the fear and the violence and
the knowledge that any day some stranger might strike you down?"
She regretted her words as soon as they were
uttered.
It was a remarkably tactless
question and a clear manifestation of her fatigue.
Kilmara
laughed.
"I don't accept sweets
from strangers," he said, "and I play the percentages.
And I'm very good at what I do."
"But so
was Mr. Fitzduane, you have implied," said Kathleen.
"Kathleen,"
said Kilmara, "when you have got his attention, Hugo is the most dangerous
man you are ever likely to encounter.
But he can be a little slow to start.
His values get in the way of some of the more direct requirements of
this business.
But when he is motivated,
he makes me look like a wimp."
Kathleen found
it hard to reconcile the horribly wounded man in ICU with any element of menace
at all, but Kilmara spoke with quiet certainty.
Then a disconcerting thought occurred to her.
"The
armed guards you've placed here," she said.
"Do you expect more trouble?
Would these terrorists try again in such a public
place?"
Kilmara took
his time replying.
He did not want to
create a panic in the hospital.
On the
other hand, Kathleen did not look like the panicking kind and he owed her more
than a little for what she was doing for Fitzduane.
"The kind
of people we are dealing with will do anything anywhere," said
Kilmara.
"That is one of the rules
of their game.
There are no limits.
Zero.
Zip.
Nada.
None.
That's what
keeps me young," he added cheerfully, "trying to outguess the
fuckers."
"So you
think they will try again?" said Kathleen.
"Possibly,"
said Kilmara slowly.
"So we're
all at risk," said Kathleen, "as long as your friend remains in this
hospital."
Kilmara
nodded.
"There is an element of
risk," he added, "but let's not go overboard on it.
There will be heavy security."
"Jesus
Christ!" said Kathleen, quite shaken.
"Who are these people?
Why
can't you find them and stop them?"
Kilmara
emptied his hip flask into his mug.
"Terrorism is like cancer," he said.
"We have our successes, but the enemy mutates
and we're still looking for a cure.
It
is a long, open-ended war."
"I guess
the sooner we get your friend recovered and out of here, the better," said
Kathleen.
Kilmara lifted
his mug in a mock salute.
"Way to
go, Kathleen," he said.
"Now
you're getting it."
Kathleen gave
a thin smile.
6
January 18
Fitzduane
opened his eyes.
What had
awakened him?
Who was out there?
He must react.
He had dropped his guard before and look at
what had happened.
The imperative
to move coursed through his body and was counteracted by his painkillers and
sedation.
Still the
warning screamed at him.
Sweat broke
out on his forehead.
He tired to rise to
a sitting position, some body posture from which he could react more forcibly
than when lying down helpless and defenseless.
The effort was
terrible.
His body did not want to
respond.
He drove it
into submission and slowly he could raise his head and bandaged torso, but he
was too weak.
He screwed up his eyes as
the pain hit, and a low cry of agony and frustration escaped from his body.
He heard a
voice, and it was the voice of a friend.
There was no threat.
He was
safe.
Boots was safe.
Suddenly, he knew where he was.
And then he
saw her and felt her hand soothe his forehead and heard her voice again.
"Hugo," she said.
"You're safe.
Relax.
Lie back.
There is nothing to
worry about.
You must rest and get
well."
The digital
wall clock read 2:23.
Kathleen, a
warm, dark-haired woman in her early thirties, was changing his drip.
On Linda Foley's initiative, she had been
seconded from Intensive Care.
Burke's
patients tended to do better than most.
She had the touch.
She finished
her task and checked his pulse.
She had
an upside-down watch pinned to her uniform and she was looking at it as she
counted silently.
He liked the touch of
her fingers and the clean, warm smell of her body.
There was the mark of a recently removed ring
on the third finger of her left hand.
"Can I
get you something, Hugo?" she said very softly.
Fitzduane smiled.
It was strange.
The pain was still there but somehow
remote.
He felt rested and at
peace.
He lifted his hand and took
hers.
There was nothing sexual in the
gesture.
It was the kind of thing you
might not do in broad daylight but which is somehow appropriate when it is two
in the morning and the rest of the world seems asleep.
"Tell me
about it," he said sleepily.
His
fingers stroked the spot where the ring had been.
Kathleen
laughed quietly.
She was a very pretty
woman, all the better for the signs of the passing of the years etched on her
face.
"It doesn't work that
way," she said.
"You're
supposed to do the talking.
It doesn't
do for a nurse to give away her secrets to a patient."
"It takes
away the mystique," said Fitzduane quietly, with a smile, quoting what a
nurse in
"Patients want
support and strength — solutions, not problems.
It doesn’t do to get emotionally involved with a patient."
He grinned.
"One way or another, we move on."
He started to
laugh out loud.
Outside in the corridor,
the Ranger on duty heard the sound and felt mildly jealous.
It would be nice to recline in bed with a
pretty nurse as company.
Then he
contemplated what he had seen and heard about Fitzduane's injuries and decided
that he had the better part of the bargain, after all.
The nurse came
out of the room some ten minutes later and there was a smile on her face.
She looked more relaxed, happier
somehow.
Earlier on, when he had checked
her on screen before letting her through the double security barrier, the
Ranger could have sworn she had been crying.
A message
sounded in his earpiece, and he responded by pressing the transmit button in
the day's coded response.
Then he
concentrated on the routines that the General had laid down to keep Fitzduane
safe from another attack.
The Ranger
hadn't needed any reminders that lightning can strike as often as it
takes.
He had been one of the
force
that had relieved the siege of Fitzduane's castle
three years earlier.
As far as he was
concerned, if you were a player in the war against terrorism, you were in a
state of permanent danger.
Simply put,
either you killed them or — sooner or later — they would inflict lethal force
on you.
*
*
*
*
*
January 24
General Shane Kilmara — it was really rather nice being a general at last
— thought that Fitzduane looked terrible.
On the other hand, he looked less terrible than three weeks earlier.
The sense that you were looking only at a
receptacle for tubes, electronics, and the drug industry was gone.
Now Fitzduane looked mostly like a messed-up
human who was still being stuck together.
Shades of Frankenstein when he needed more work, only
Fitzduane was better-looking.
He was pale, he'd lost a lot of weight, and he was strapped, plastered,
and plugged into a drip and a mess of other hardware, but he was sitting up and
his green-gray eyes had life in them again.
And that was good.
Also, he was
talking.
That, perhaps, wasn't so
good.
Hugo was a particularly bright
human being, and his questions meant work.
And tended to have consequences.
"Who and why?" said Fitzduane.
"How about ‘Good morning,’" said
Kilmara.
"I haven't even sat down."
He pulled up an armchair to demonstrate his
lack and began to nibble at Fitzduane's grapes.
It was curious how hard it was to talk to the sick.
You tended to meet and deal with most people
in full, or at least reasonable, health.
A person laid low was like a stranger.
You no longer possessed a common frame of reference.
The same applied to a soldier on the battlefield.
When he was mobile, he was fire support and
valued.
After injury he was a statistic,
a casualty — and a liability.
It wasn't
very nice, but it was true.
And like
many things in life, there wasn't much you could do about it.
Fitzduane, it appeared, wasn't going to accept the convention.
He might look like something the cat had
chucked up behind the sofa, but his brain was working.
Kilmara formed the view that his friend — actually his closest friend,
now he thought of it, except maybe for Adeline, who was his wife and therefore
didn't actually count in that particular census — was on the mend; maybe.
The medics were still hedging their bets.
But it was going to be a long haul.
Being shot with a high-powered rifle tended to have that effect.
As they used to say in
wound is nature's way of telling you you've been hit."
Hugo had been hit twice, and it showed.
"Shane," said Fitzduane.
There was something about the tone.
Kilmara was caught in mid-munch.
He swallowed the pits.
"No speeches," he said.
"I embarrass easily."
Fitzduane was silent.
"In
case I forgot to mention it," he said, after a very long pause,
"thank you."
"Is that it?" said Kilmara, sounding incredulous.
"Is that all?"
He grinned.
"Truth to tell, we were lucky.
Well, relatively lucky."
Fitzduane raised an eyebrow.
"That's a matter or perspective," he said.
"Now let's get to work.
The white suits have cut back on the pills
and needles, so I'm beginning to be able to string together a thought or two,
and these first thoughts are not kindly.
I want whoever is behind this.
You've got some of the puppets and that's nice, but that's not what
counts.
What really matters is nailing
the puppetmaster."
Two nurses came in and started to do things to Fitzduane before Kilmara
could respond.
They asked Kilmara to
wait outside.
When he came back in
Fitzduane was paler, but his pillows were puffed up and his bed looked neater.
Kilmara had been shot in his life and had had malaria and other reasons
for being hospitalized.
He had formed
the view that the medical professionals sometimes had their priorities mixed
up.
They liked their patients to look
sharp so that they could show them off to the doctors.
The patient's rest didn't seem to come into
it.
Nonetheless, he had a weakness for
nurses.
He could forgive most nurses
most things.
He switched his mind back to Fitzduane.
He had been told in words of one syllable that the patient was not to be
worried and that stress was to be avoided at all costs.
And now Fitzduane, his medication at last down
to manageable proportions so he could think reasonably clearly, wanted to dive
straight into the investigation.
Tricky.
Hard to know what to do.